Stoicism has long been celebrated as a philosophy which helps those who practice it overcome life’s hardships. And though I don’t suggest we reject stoicism entirely, I argue that hidden beneath the surface of its austerity is a logic that, if carried to its extreme, starts to resemble the phenomenon of “toxic positivity”—the denial of negativity and of the full range of human emotions.
Even though the stoic approach indeed offers an appealing framework for achieving inner peace, if taken too literally, it can ultimately lead to a form of emotional suppression.
Ryan Holiday, in his Introduction to Stoicism (Daily Stoic), says:
“The obstacles we face in life make us emotional. The only way we’ll overcome them is by keeping those emotions in check—if we can keep steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may fluctuate.”
In contrast, psychologist Whitney Goodman, in her book Toxic Positivity, warns:
“When we believe that there are certain emotions that we should feel and others that we shouldn’t, we’re doomed to experience shame when we experience more of the latter and less of the former.”
This is where Stoicism can resemble toxic positivity: when it turns into an unrealistic expectation of emotional detachment. If one believes they must always remain “steady no matter what happens”, they might start dismissing or invalidating their own feelings, just as toxic positivity pushes people to “look on the bright side” and reject discomfort. Both attitudes can create an inner pressure to deny the full range of human emotions. When taken too far, this practical philosophy risks creating a rigid mindset where emotional struggle is seen as weakness—mirroring the very essence of toxic positivity. The healthiest approach lies in acknowledging emotions without letting them control us, rather than demanding total suppression or forced optimism.
An outline of Stoicism
Hellenistic philosophies, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, were born after the death of Alexander the Great. These practical philosophies surfaced as a response to a moment of instability of a crumbling empire. It had become necessary for thinkers to find new ways to deal with the uncertainties of life. This is why such philosophies generally advocate for detachment from material life and acceptance of events out of our control, as well as providing practical guidelines aimed at keeping emotions at bay.
Stoicism tells us that our emotions are the response to events, but that negative (generally excessive or extreme) emotions are rooted in our mistaken interpretations of these events. And for the Stoics, the key to achieving a peaceful mindset lies in the use of reason and wisdom to moderate these passions.
While Stoic philosophers believed the world to be deterministic, they still thought humans have some degree of agency in this life: we can control how we react to external events. So this means that if we learn to understand that external events are a) ultimately out of our control and b) not ultimately important, we can put into practice the art of “Apatheia: the kind of calm equanimity that comes with the absence of extreme or irrational emotions” (Daily Stoic).
In this sense, our emotions may be seen as irrational responses to false judgments about the external world. And the Stoic solution to human suffering is to purify the mind, through reason, of “extreme thoughts”. For instance, Stoics consider anxiety as one of the excessive, negative emotions we should undoubtedly rid ourselves of. Anxiety is the (irrational) emotion that we feel when we anticipate a possible negative future event. The key to eliminating such a useless emotion, for the Stoics, would be to rationalize, and understand that the future event we’re feeling anxious about will either happen regardless of whether we worry about it, or not happen at all. And the fact that we’re stressing ourselves over it is illogical and stupid—because it causes unnecessary suffering. Through rigorous mental discipline, Stoics believe, one can control the degree to which external events affect their internal state, and achieve a life free from these unnecessary emotions.
Though while Stoic philosophy can indeed offer valuable tools for cultivating inner peace, taken too literally, or to an extreme, it risks veering into the territory of emotional suppression—a hallmark of toxic positivity. The Stoic demand to rid oneself of negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, and sadness may inadvertently encourage the view that these emotions have no place in a well-lived life. This approach, like toxic positivity, tends to dismiss or minimize emotions that are difficult but necessary for personal growth, leading to a suppression of the emotional complexity that makes us human.
The importance of emotions
One of the problems I find with the Stoic view of emotions is that it has the argument backwards. The ancient Stoics cannot be blamed for not arriving at the conclusions we have reached after years of research in psychology and neuroscience, but this just goes to show that Stoicism—if not aligned with current scientific understanding of emotions—is simply no longer relevant. If we are to accept the Stoic practice, it should be updated in light of the insights that modern neuroscience and psychology provide.
We now know not only that emotions have a specific evolutionary purpose, but also that without emotions, we wouldn’t be able to make “reasonable” choices in the first place. Emotions are one of the key aspects of what makes us rational beings.
In his “Descartes’ Error”, Antonio Damasio describes patients with lesions in brain areas that control emotions who were unable to make even the simplest decisions, like choosing which chair to sit in when presented with two options. This, naturally, disrupted several areas of their lives: they struggled to maintain a job, couldn’t spend money “reasonably”; they were impulsive and stimulus-bound, often behaving inappropriately without empathy or concern for social norms. While they were capable of completing other intellectual tasks such as math problems, they weren’t able to make “intelligent”, rational choices, with regards to other significant practical matters.
This suggests that emotions are not irrational disturbances to be suppressed, but rather essential tools for understanding the world and making choices. Without the ability to experience emotions, the patients studied by Damasio found it challenging to engage appropriately within their environment. Far from being an obstacle to reason, emotions lie at its very foundation.
From these facts it is clear that Stoic philosophy wrongly undervalues the role that emotions play in our lives.
Emotions are one of our bodies’ ways of achieving homeostasis (the self-regulating process to maintain stability and optimal internal conditions). They influence short-term adaptive responses (like stress reactions) and long-term health outcomes through their impact on behavior and physiological regulation systems.
In other words, emotions make us aware of what’s going on, both outside and inside of us. In many cases, emotion precedes cognition—we may feel afraid before consciously realizing why, and specific brain regions (like the amygdala) play crucial roles in processing emotional stimuli rapidly and unconsciously. “Emotions are an involuntary response to environmental stimuli and we don’t have full control over our emotional experience. We can learn to respond to our emotions and augment our behavior, but we will never fully control how we feel.” (Toxic Positivity). This is why the rigid Stoic mindset, and its attempt to have complete control over our emotions is not only unhealthy, but ultimately impossible.
Emotions give us information about what is happening in the world. This is a fundamental ability that evolved for the survival of humans. In certain situations, such as a sudden noise, our heart rate spikes, our breathing accelerates, and blood flow to our muscles increases—all things we can’t consciously control. The emotion (fear) that arises allows us to prepare for the appropriate action (fight, or run away), suggesting that emotions have a “logical” reason for arising in the first place. It’s not only bad for our health (and possibly to our survival) to attempt to suppress these “negative” emotions, it is largely impossible to do so:
“Humans are inherently negative by nature and it helps keep us alive. Our tendency to focus on the bad stuff isn’t an accident. It’s a product of evolution that is necessary to survival.” (Toxic Positivity)
The reason Stoicism seems so enticing is because its proponents promise a safe, certain and clear way not to feel “irrationally” anxious or excessively sad. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that it’s simply not the way humans work, nor something we should even aim for:
“We can all agree that it is healthy to feel ‘positive’ when it comes from a genuine place. But somewhere along the way, we constructed this idea that being a ‘positive person’ means you’re a robot who has to see the good in literally everything.” (Toxic Positivity).
We don’t control our emotions, we simply feel them, and we can’t reason our way out of feeling an emotion. Research on emotional suppression suggests that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger. It’s important to distinguish between emotional regulation and emotional suppression. While the Stoic philosophy doesn’t advocate for a complete suppression of emotions, it does advocate for a state which is virtually impossible to reach.
The “premeditatio malorum” and “memento mori”
One of the Stoic principles is called “premeditatio malorum”. The Stoics advise that we meditate and prepare ourselves for any possible negative events that might befall us at any time during the day. This, in their view, would make people aware that any any time things could go wrong at any time, so that if something bad did happen, they would be pre-prepared and consequently able to avoid feelings of despair, grief, or immense sadness , as they would have anticipated the possibility of that event happening.
On a similar note, one of the famous mottos of Stoicism is “memento mori”, remember that you will die (i.e. that you are mortal). In the same way as the premeditatio malorum, the Stoic view is that if we remember that all things will inevitably die, we won’t be so surprised when it happens. Thus avoiding (irrational?) grief.
In today’s world, we would never realistically be able to think of all the possible bad things that could happen on any day; there are simply too many variables to take into account. For instance, it’s possible that the alarm won’t go off in the morning, that your car won’t start, or may break down as you’re driving to work. Or you could lose control of the car and have an accident. Or maybe someone else could lose control of their car, and hit you. You could potentially choke any time you eat, or slip and fall every time you shower. From the simply annoying or frustrating to the to more devastatingly painful, any number of things could happen to us every day.
But even if we could attempt to prepare ourselves by thinking of all the ways things could go wrong, are we sure this would be the healthy thing to do? As already mentioned, thinking negatively and focusing on the bad is to some degree a natural thing to do, but intentionally and consciously thinking about all the possible negative outcomes any given action can lead to just seems crazy. It’s not just a question of a pessimistic perspective. Having these negative thoughts constantly and purposely running through your mind simply isn’t healthy. But this is what the stoics recommended that we do to stay grounded.
Try to think what your reaction would be if you lost your phone (horrifying, right?). Stoicism tells us a number of things:
Before the event even happened, you should have established a careful (reasonable) detachment from your phone, and held in mind the possibility that you could potentially lose it one day. This would have helped keep you grounded and avoid being shocked when it happened. Then they would remind you that such events are out of your control, and being upset by them is unreasonable—it won’t get your phone back. So you should just take a deep breath and realize that it simply doesn’t matter.
But the thing is, the sadness, anger, or disappointment—whatever the emotion you may feel—is simply an indication that you cared about your phone. The same applies for a number of things of a range of importance. What if your car was stolen? What if your house burned down?
And even if we were able to mentally prepare ourselves for the possibility of a certain event happening, I doubt this would significantly change the emotion we’d feel if it did. The fact that one logically knows there’s a possibility something could go wrong doesn’t mean that they won’t have a reaction if it does. How does thinking that something might happen prevent us from being affected by it? At best you would avoid being surprised. But you’d still be upset. There’s a fine line between being mentally prepared for everything, and focusing on negativity.
And at the far end of the range of importance, if we look at this same example from the perspective of losing someone we love, what then? Even if you (reasonably) know that everyone inevitably dies, and that anyone could die at any moment, you can never be fully prepared when the event happens. Grief and sadness are fundamental aspects of being human, and though we might not want to feel these (“negative”) emotions, it’s important that we do so.
Being upset about having lost something is simply the indication that we cared about it/them. Advocating for a suppression of emotions in these situations is what leads Stoicism to resemble toxic positivity. Philosopher Marta Nussbaum argues that emotions are intelligent appraisals of events—ways through which we engage with the world and reflect on what truly matters to us. Grief and sadness reveal the depth of our love, just as fear signals the presence of danger. Rather than eliminating emotions, we should strive to understand and integrate them into our moral and practical reasoning.
In moments of distress, pain or grief, toxic positivity tells us to “keep smiling”, to “look on the bright side”. You’re in distress, but people tell you not to think about it, and Stoicism tells you that having that emotion is irrational, because the event that caused it is out of your control. But, in Whitney Goodman’s words:
“When we believe that there are certain emotions that we should feel and others that we shouldn’t, we’re doomed to experience shame when we experience more of the latter and less of the former.” (Toxic Positivity).
Sadness is often regarded as one of those emotions we don’t want to (or shouldn’t) feel, but not only is it a fundamental aspect of our humanity—it has evolutionary, psychological and social significance. Sadness is an adaptive response to the challenges we face that call for pause and reflection. When we experience an event that elicits sadness, our bodies undergo several neurological and physiological changes (a drop in energy levels, slower metabolism, and even an instinctive withdrawal from social interactions). These changes are not malfunctions, they surface by biological design.
“Shaming ourselves for experiencing a normal, biologically programmed response to a stimulus isn’t going to lead us anywhere. […] When we use toxic positivity against ourselves, it obstacles curiosity and exploration of the emotion. […] We’re trying to deny the existence of an emotion because it doesn’t line up with what we think should be there. But here’s the thing: emotions aren’t intellectual. You can’t think them away or deny them out of existence. Emotions don’t always tell the truth and sometimes we interpret them incorrectly, but they’re there for a reason. Telling yourself that you shouldn’t be feeling something won’t change that reality.” (Toxic positivity).
Detachment from the external
The Stoics tell us to remain detached from things—which might at first seem like good advice. They tell us that we have no control over the events in the world, and so we shouldn’t be bothered by them. We should remain (reasonably) detached from everything external.
Stoics have gone so far as to say that the wise man is happy, even if he is a slave. There are quite a few problems with this view.
This seems as to be telling us not to bother trying to change our position in the world, because ultimately it doesn’t matter. If we find ourselves in a situation that isn’t good for us we should simply learn to accept it as one of the inevitable facts of the universe—which are out of our control. Desiring something that is out of reach is, for the Stoics, an “irrational” behavior to be avoided, because it leads to negative emotions when we fail to achieve the object of our desire. We should not “desire”, but rather “reasonably wish” for things that are within our reach.
But hoping for something different, striving for or attempting to change something, no matter how out of reach the goal may seem, is not only a fundamental aspect of being human, but ultimately what has made many of our accomplishments possible. Resigning ourselves to the “fate” of the universe, is really just telling us to wait for things to happen. If it’s destiny, it will happen, if it’s not, it won’t. You have no control over it, whether you wish for something or not. Adopting this mindset discourages individuals from addressing systemic injustices, from pursuing anything, because even acknowledging their emotions is seen as a weakness.
Martha Nussbaum, in her “The Cosmopolitan Tradition” tells us that in the Stoic view, external, material goods are simply “preferred”, such that it is appropriate to pursue them, but we shouldn’t grieve when we cannot attain them, that “if people are really good they don’t mind the loss of externals, so, by implication, if they do mind them that shows they are morally defective.” The extreme rationalism of Stoicism tells us that the external world is irrelevant, that our happiness should be solely determined by internal judgments. This detachment not only undermines our natural impulses for change but could also leave us emotionally paralyzed in the face of genuine adversity.
Stoicism absolves us of the responsibility to change harmful external realities. Similarly, when we are bombarded with mantras like “just think positive,” we are, in effect, being told that our pain is a personal failing. The ideology of toxic positivity is not to be mistaken for optimism; it is a subtle form of gaslighting that invalidates authentic suffering. It transforms a healthy emotional process into an obligation to suppress any sign of discomfort or vulnerability.
And if the external doesn’t matter, as the Stoics say, and all we need to be happy is reason, then what about all the people suffering from a lack of even the absolute minimum requirements for a minimal well-being in this world? Either they’re suffering because they’re not reasonable enough to accept their fates, or external conditions do matter.
“The tradition appears to hold that material possessions make no difference to the exercise of our capacities for choice and other aspects of our dignity. If one really believes that human dignity is totally immune to the accidents of fortune, then slavery, torture, and unjust war do not damage it, any more than hunger and disease. But this seems false: people who are ill-nourished, who have no clean water, and who have no access to resources connected to health, education, and other “material” goods are not equally able to cultivate their capacities for choice or to express their basic human dignity.” (The Cosmopolitan Tradition).
If we accept the Stoic position, what does this say about the people who lack the reasoning capabilities the Stoics praise?—Children who haven’t yet developed them, the elderly whose mental faculties are declining, people with disabilities or with injuries—are they less human (or less virtuous) because they lack the quality that the stoics describe as not only inherent to humans, but written in the very fabric of the universe? And what does this mindset entail when it comes to our responsibility towards one another? Emotional resilience should not come at the cost of denying real struggles.
Stoicism tells us that external things don’t matter, but it ignores how deeply interconnected we are with our surroundings. We feel things because external events matter to us, and our emotions help us process and navigate them. The idea that one can simply detach from these experiences and be unaffected is not a sign of resilience—it is a denial of human nature:
“The Stoic position seems to be: either these things are external blows, in which case they don’t touch what really matters, or they are the result of some moral weakness in the person, in which case they do matter but the person herself is to blame.” (The Cosmopolitan Tradition).
In short, things are either unimportant, or they are under the control of the will.
The “external doesn’t matter” abstraction turns out to be a dangerous delusion. External things, material things, do matter. They are a fundamental aspect of how our lives are shaped, and saying that reason is all that is required to find happiness is condescending—and a form of gaslighting—towards those who are unable to practice it.
Conclusion
The fact of the matter is that, through reason and logic alone, we can’t do much. The major issue with Stoicism is its simple assumption that if we simply understand the world rationally, we will not suffer emotionally. But they’ve got it backwards. The internal human experience is too complex and chaotic to be fully manageable through reason alone.
We’re expected to accept the idea that through rationality we can make everything better. That if we approach everything through reason, all our problems will be solved—resulting in a rationally constructed utopia.
The assumption is that if people are making bad choices it’s because they’re not rational enough. But this is nowhere near what it’s like to actually exist as a conscious being with an internal experience of the world. To be human is to not do the rational thing all the time. People often do things that they know are not right for them. People don’t smoke because they lack awareness of its dangers—they smoke in spite of it. People suffering from anxiety, grief, or depression do not simply need to be reminded of some logical truth to make them feel better—you can’t rationalize your way out of an emotion.
Suffering is a necessary part of human life, and if you try to rationally coordinate things to put an end to one kind of suffering, you’ll just open yourself up to a different kind of suffering.
Stoicism, in its original form, can provide an elegant framework for managing distress through reason, but human beings are not rational machines. Rationality alone does not dictate our choices, nor should it. Emotions give us direction, inform our values, and help us navigate the complexities of life. Instead of viewing emotions as disturbances to be eliminated, we should recognize them as essential aspects of the human experience—guiding us not to passively accept the world—with its endless potential problems—as it is, but to shape it into something better.
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